Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia has made her documentary, the Future of Food, available for free from now until Election Day in order to help us raise the funds we need to reach TV and radio audiences across the state. The film gives viewers a clear understanding of the complexities of agricultural genetic engineering and the system of food production that has developed because of this technology.

37 Facts About How Cruel This Economy Has Been To Millions Of Desperate American Families

by The Economic Collapse, 28 October 2012

Have you ever laid in bed awake at night with a knot in your stomach because you didn’t know how your family was possibly going to make it through the next month financially? Have you ever felt the desperation of not being able to provide the basic necessities for your family even though you tried as hard as you could? All over America tonight, there are millions of desperate families that are being ripped apart by this economy. There aren’t nearly enough jobs, and millions of Americans that actually do have jobs aren’t making enough to even provide the basics for their families. When you have tried everything that you can think of and nothing works, it can be absolutely soul crushing. Today, one of my regular readers explained that he was not going to be online for a while because his power had been turned off. He has been out of work for quite a while, and eventually the money runs out. Have you ever been there? If you have ever experienced that moment, you know that it stays with you for the rest of your life. If you are single that is bad enough, but when you have to look into the eyes of your children and explain to them why there won’t be any dinner tonight or why they have to move into a homeless shelter it can feel like someone has driven a stake into your heart. In this article you will find a lot of very shocking economic statistics. But please remember that behind each statistic are the tragic stories of millions of desperately hurting American families.

Over the past decade, things have steadily gotten worse for American families no matter what our politicians have tried. Poverty and government dependence continue to rise. The cost of living continues to go up and incomes continue to go down. It is truly frightening to think about what this country is going to look like if current trends continue.

The following are 37 facts that show how cruel this economy has been to millions of desperate American families…

1. One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.

2. A different recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.

3. In the United States today, there are close to 10 million households that do not have a single bank account. That number has increased by about a million since 2009.

4. Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

5. The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by about 6 million over the past four years.

6. Median household income has fallen for four years in a row. Overall, it has declined by more than $4000 over the past four years.

8. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is more difficult to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.

9. In the United States today, 77 percent of all Americans are living to paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time.

11. Since January 2009, the “labor force” in the United States has increased by 827,000, but “those not in the labor force” has increased by 8,208,000. This is how they have gotten the unemployment numbers to “come down”.

12. Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

13. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the federal poverty level.

14. Right now, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.

15. At this point, less than 25 percent of all jobs in the United States are “good jobs”, and that number continues to shrink.

16. There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

17. According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.

18. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

19. In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

20. Health insurance premiums rose faster than the overall rate of inflation in 2011 and that is happening once again in 2012. In fact, it has been happening for a very long time.

21. According to one recent survey, approximately 10 percent of all employers in the United States plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now.

22. Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.

23. Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

24. Total consumer debt in the United States has risen by 1700 percent since 1971.

27. Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living at home with their parents.

28. The percentage of Americans that find that they are able to retire when they reach retirement age continues to decline. According to one new survey, 70 percent of middle class Americans plan to work during retirement and 30 percent plan to work until they are at least 80 years old.

30. In 2010, the number of jobs created at new businesses in the United States was less than half of what it was back in the year 2000.

31. Back in 2007, 19.2 percent of all American families had a net worth of zero or less than zero. By 2010, that figure had soared to 32.5 percent.

32. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

33. In the United States today, somewhere around 100 million Americans are considered to be either “poor” or “near poor”.

34. In October 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, 46.7 million Americans are on food stamps.

35. Approximately one-fourth of all children in the United States are enrolled in the food stamp program.

36. Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare.

37. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

What makes all of this even more frightening is that many homeless shelters and food banks around the nation are so overloaded at this point that they are already over capacity. Just consider this example…

When Janice Coe, a homeless advocate in Loudoun County, learned through her prayer group that a young woman was sleeping in the New Carrollton Metro station with a toddler and a 2-month-old, she sprang into action.

Coe contacted the young woman and arranged for her to take the train to Virginia, where she put the little family up in a Comfort Suites hotel. Then Coe began calling shelters to see who could take them.

Despite several phone calls, she came up empty. Coe was shocked to learn that many of the local shelters that cater to families were full, including Good Shepherd Alliance, where Coe was once director of social services.

“I don’t know why nobody will take this girl in,” Coe said. “The baby still had a hospital bracelet on her wrist.”

Keep in mind that Loudoun Country is smack dab in the middle of one of the wealthiest areas of Virginia.

So if things are that bad in the wealthy areas, exactly how bad are things getting in many of the poorer areas?

Unfortunately, things continue to get worse for this economy. DuPont has just announced plans to eliminate 1,500 jobs. There are more major layoff announcements almost every single day. So how bad will things get when our crumbling economic system finally collapses? When kind of chaos will be unleashed all over the nation when millions upon millions of Americans finally lose all hope?

In the introduction to this article, I mentioned that one of my regular readers has had his lights turned off. The following is how he described his situation…

No gas, no water, no electricity at my house. Couldn’t pay the bills. I’m broke. Desperately searching for any means of income, or at least enough cash to get the juice (electricity) restored.

Typing this missive in a dark house using the battery on my laptop. Feels like I’m camping out at home. Hope to get this situation fixed tomorrow… somehow. Needless to say, I *…. hate this.

I was ready for this, but it is still a major league inconvenience. For those of you who DO have power, etc. – and are not ready… oh brother. You need to get ready. Seriously, you do. Because what I’m going through is just an inconvenience. It may someday be a normal occurence. Ugh. (expletives deleted)

Hopefully a way can be found to get his situation turned around, but the truth is that there are tens of millions of other similar stories out there in America today.

What about you? What are things like in your neck of the woods? Please feel free to share your thoughts below…

Turmeric Repairs Damaged Liver Tissues, Promotes Overall Liver Health

by Elizabeth Renter

Natural Society, 28 October 2012

Turmeric, it gives curries their smoky, pungent taste and gorgeous yellow hue. But this root is far more than just tasty—it’s one of the most valuable plant-based medicines in existence. Research has connected turmeric to a variety of wonderful benefits, including and especially the promotion of liver health.

The Role of Turmeric in Restoring the Liver

According to a new study in the Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand, scientists there have found that the livers of diabetic rats were repaired and even regenerated with the help of this yellow power-root.

Severe diabetics often suffer liver damage and disease as they progress. But, research indicates turmeric may be able to help.

“Fascinatingly, liver microvasculature in curcumin treated group developed into regenerate and repair into healthy and normal characteristics.” They concluded: “These results optimistically demonstrated the potential use of curcumin as a novel therapeutic agent in liver pathology of diabetic rats.”

What is it aboutturmeric that makes it so great? It’s the compound known as curcumin. And curcumin has long been connected to liver health. Numerous studies have linked it to effectively combating liver cancer and improving liver fibroids. What’s more, turmeric can uniquely assist the enzymes that are responsible for flushing out known dietary carcinogens. The result is enhanced protection against liver damage, and even regeneration of affected liver cells. Turmeric is also notably responsible for improving the health of the gallbladder as well.

In relation to diabetes, there are countless studies, as shown in this chart from GreenMedInfo.com, that link curcumin and the treatment of diabetes-related problems. This includes the benefits of turmeric related to liver disease, kidney function, diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, bone density, diabetes prevention, and diabetic neuropathies.

The list of benefits doesn’t stop there—turmeric has also been shown to be able to fight Alzheimer’s disease. Experts believe the lower incidence of this disease in Middle Eastern populations could be credited to the higher consumption of turmeric.

Melnoma, breast cancer, lung cancer, neck cancer, and of course liver cancer, may all be helped with turmeric. It can also, reportedly, make cells more vulnerable to cancer treatments.

It’s an anti-inflammatory as well. This property means curcumin can help with things like arthritis, eczema, allergies, digestive problems and skin issues. It’s an antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial agent.

Reaping the benefits of turmeric and curcumin is simple: start eating it! Curries are a great way to get plenty of this super-root, and curries are very versatile. But, if Caribbean or Middle-Eastern cuisine isn’t your thing: add it to soups and sprinkle it on vegetables. For more on what this spice is capable of, check out some other awesome turmeric uses.

The Marie Antoinette Healthy Food Initiative: Take Their Gardens: Let Them Eat Bureaucracy

by Paula Camp

Food Freedom News, 27 October 2012

An article describing how the poor in Alexandria, Virginia, are being stopped from growing food, may have exposed a national scheme to ban the poor in public housing from growing food anymore. The housing projects in Alexandria primarily house poor black families. Many have been growing local, fresh food for their families, right outside their doors, for years. They say that as of last year, they are no longer allowed to. Gardens were torn out. This has occurred at the same time that Alexandria passed a resolution promoting fresh, local food.

It is not easy to tell what is really going on, but it’s clear that the Obama* Administration has a “HealthyFood Initiative” which is as grossly misleading and controlling as the Healthy Food Initiative resolution in Alexandria.

“Too many Americans live in food deserts with limited or no access to healthy foods. As a result, their communities have increased rates of obesity, diabetes, and other public health challenges.

The program says that it offers funding and training but food was already being grown in Alexandria with no need for funding and at no cost to the government, and training is similarly unnecessary as the people who were growing the food don’t need training as they have been growing it for generations, and teaching their children how to.

Under the guise of promoting access to healthy food, the government offers this abstract, convoluted, unnecessary but important sounding program for something entirely unnecessary for those who were growing food already – funding and loans:

Training:From June 2011 through June 2012, eight, free, two-day healthy food financing workshops will be offered in locations across the United States. Participants will learn a framework for evaluating healthy food projects within the context of the food system, estimate feasibility using data driven models, and learn the importance of convening community partners. Trainers with practical experience and expertise will lead participants to drill down into the specific fundraising, underwriting, and loan management skills required for successful healthy food projects. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to interact with practitioners who have succeeded in financing healthy food options.None of these unnecessary programs would be anything that poor person in a public housing would be able to manage to get into. If they did, they would receive three free things.

Resources: The following free resources will be made available through the Capacity Building Website to workshop attendees and non-attendees, including:

National Demand for Healthy Food Options Report: A robust, in-depth study of areas with low access to healthy foods in low income communities across the country.

Financial Resources Catalog: Primary public and private sources of financing available to CDFIs to finance healthy foods initiatives.

Implementation Handbook: A handbook that showcases best practices and case studies in successful healthy food financing.

For this bizarre program, they make it clear there is limited availability and that no sessions are currently scheduled.

For someone who simply wants to grow their food in peace, they would be missing this information which is entirely worthless in terms of accessing fresh food now.

Right now the US faces the possible collapse of the economy. People can’t eat money. Nor can they eat the mounds of bureaucratic hot air that the Healthy Food Initiative is comprised of. Without gardens, without money, poor people, especially the Black and Hispanic people in public housing, could starve to death. The Healthy Food Initiative appears to be an extensive charade about food security and access to local fresh food. It does not do the simplest things to provide either:

1. Instruct all Public Housing projects in the US to allow residents to grow food or potentially be held liable for racial discrimination.

2. Encourage local civic organizations and businesses to donate organic soil and organic seedlings and plastic pots of all sizes to public housing projects, as well as to anyone in the community wanting to grow local food.

3. Remove government obstacles to using public land: Open up local public land for people to grow food – whether beside highways or along streets or on any unused land.

4. Plant fruit trees and nut trees and berries of all kinds in parks for anyone to benefit from (as is happening in Seattle), instead of cities spending money on trees that produce nothing edible.

Meanwhile, a similar sleight of hand is occurring around food for the poor at the international level:

“At the Group of 8 (G8) meetings this past weekend, President Obama* and the leaders of the rest of the world’s richest nations abandoned their governments’ previous commitments to donate $7.3 billion a year to end hunger in Africa, after disbursing only 58 percent of the total pledge of $22 billion and giving less than 6 percent in new money they pledged three years ago.

“Instead, rich nations will leave the problem in the hands of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition where private corporations will invest $3 billion over 10 years — Monsanto has committed $50 million — beginning in three countries, Tanzania, Ghana and Ethiopia. (Human-rights activists have questioned the inclusion of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, noting that his authoritarian government has jailed dissidents and banned media access to hunger zones. ….)

“The main U.S. spokesperson for the New Alliance is USAID administrator Rajiv Shah. OCA opposed Dr. Shah’s appointment because of his work for the Gates Foundation and his position as a board member of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which actively promote expensive and unsustainable technologies like genetic engineering.”

For any who think the administration’s bizarre Healthy Food Initiative that leads to no food or the G8′s opening the door to corporate control of food in Africa, is only about the poor, they have missed this Administration’s subtle two step move to turn all decisions on rural land in the US over to the “Council on Philanthropy” – the bankers, the oil giants, pharma, Monsanto, Gates, etc.. Just as in Africa, the US has handed power over to the Rockefellers, despite their horrific history and continuing plans (with GMO-food and with vaccines, which they and Gates are heavily invested in).

Bioneers’ founder recently Kenny Ausubel gave an important to talk at the 2012 Bioneers Conference in California entitled, “We Make the Road by Walking.” He referred to “this epic moment of radical environmental and social disruption [in which] the world is experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation to becoming an ecologically literate and socially just civilization.”

We can get there, but he warned that we can be deluded and must avoid it.

“The Mayan vision says we in the West will find safe harbor only if we can journey past a wall of mirrors. The mirrors will drive us mad—unless we have a strong heart.”

Those mirrors are quite powerful. For Ausubel himself continues on in his speechto praises “sustainable” banks. Yet those banks, part of The Global Alliance for Banking on Values and just as with the Healthy Food Initiative, are not at all what the positive words attached to them would lead people to believe. Those “sustainable banks” are connected to the Rockefellers, too.

“It works with key partners to further its work. In particular, with FMO, the development bank of the Netherlands, the Rockefeller Foundation, who co-fund its financial capital and impact metrics action track, and SBI who deliver services and solutions that extend access to capital to un(der)served individuals, households and entrepreneurs globally.

Once we see past to the mirrors the corporate powers have put in place, including the entire monetary system, things will change rapidly for the good. Ausubel is right that “the empire has no roots and it’s toppling all around us. In this time, everyone is called to take a stand. Everyone is called to be a leader.”We begin by seeing through the Healthy Food Initiatives in our own cities and towns, and learning just how powerful each of us growing own food is turning out to be. We can follow up by seeing through the myths from the industrial food system (video). And Bioneers will recognize that we can’t build a new world by tweaking the scarcity based monetary system, but by seeing through the entiremonetary system (which the Rockefellers are central to), in order to reach an economy of abundance and a future for the world.

As people keep saying, it’s all about waking up. One by one, we are breaking mirrors so everyone can see their way out. Growing food ourselves is key. Food is freedom.

[*No reference to Obama is meant to suggest that Republicans are not part of this or would do differently. What we face is being done by internationally powerful corporate powers that control both parties.]

Liberation Wellness Member and author Stanley Fishman talks with host Kevin Brown about his miraculous recovery from a life threatening illness with Grass-Fed Meat!

Stanley Fishman was very ill most of his life. When the doctors told him there was no hope, he gave up on them, and turned to alternate methods. Real food was the answer. No current health problems, not one. He ruined the first grassfed meat he cooked, and experimented with traditional methods until he learned how to cook it. Seeing a need, he wrote Tender Grassfed Meat, a cookbook that makes it easy to cook tender and delicious grassfed meat. He has also written Tender Grassfed Barbecue, a cookbook that adapts traditional barbecue methods to modern times. He is devoted to the real food movement and blogs about grassfed meat and other real food issues at TenderGrassfedMeat.com.

About Me

An American living in Sweden.
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